The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1887-10-14
HONDURAS.
PRODUCTS OF THIS CENTRAL
AMERICAN REPUBLIC
Its Woods and Fruits-Cigar-BoS
Timber-Mahogany Trees-The
Nurritiye PlRntain. Bananas
and Cocoanuts Trees.


and CocOanuts Trees.
American citizens have monopoly Of
the vast fruit, fiber, nut and mahogany
trade Of Spanish Honduras The trade
employs numerous ocean steamships, and
nearly all of the native laborers. The
beginning OF these industries was in
le.s. Mahogany is now the most i'm
portant timber in naval construction,
where 1t is used largely for planking.
Cannon balls go through it without
splintering or splitting the wood The
best timber is shipped to Enslapd, and
the cheaper qualities come 10 tbe nited
states Tor the manufacture OF furniture
ana for interior finish. Nearly all
sleeping and drawing-room coaches are
( finished with it.
> m ricans are taking from Hond iras,
and shipping them everywhere, the bsst
fruits and woods of the world. \ glance
at these products will certainly surprise
the best informed people AL Of our
cigar-boxes are made from the Spanish
cedars Of Honduras. This God is sus-
ceptible of beautiful polish, and Is
much in use for interior finish. II very
nearly resembles mahogany, and is, per
haps, the only wood which will not i'm
pregnate cigars withits odor Hard satin
wood grows plentifully and is one Of
the principal building timbers OF Hon
duras. 1t is yellowish in cast, aud makes
a beautiful hard surface. The tamarind (
compares very closely with mahogany, J
except that it is very hard and curly. 1t
+, & II IL 10.
sanOdilla is a very hard, close grained
redwood, durable and strong. A large
percentage of our hubs are made from
it The ebrl-wo will be found in I
our pockets and on the country table in /
form of knife-hsndles 1t resembles /
rosewood. 1t is lighter than the South .
American variety. aud very fine. 1t is !
also usrd for veneer work and all kinds
OF rosewood veneering. The lgnum
Wit e. which is also used for knife han
dies, etc, is quite well known, The
cabbage-palms are found in our most
beautiful canes, and are likely to form
the brush backs Of the future. Twenty
or thirty other varieties Of wood exist
there, more or less in use. The pine
found in the mountains is too hard and
pit by for any use except as timber.
The mahogany trees are hunted in the
fall months The laborers are hired
about Christmas time During the rainy
season, the logs are tloated down the
river to the steamships on the coast and
loaded. The trucking is done with large
twO-wheel trucks, with seven 10 ten foot
wheels, drawn by five and eight yoke Of
sxen. The labor is all done by task.
Every man is given task OF so many
logs to fall, to square, or 50 many truck
paths to make. etc The men are di-
Yided into gangs Of twelve and fifteen,
under a foreman, who sees that each one
performs his task. LabOrcrs are paid
from 50 to So per month, with rations.
Their ratiOns consist of four pounds Of
pork and seven quarts Of flour weekly;
or, If preferred, fifty plantains and six
pounds of beef The toremen get extra
rations and coffee and sugar. The cattle
drivers are allowed moccasins, but the
rest go barefooted The mahogany is
generally found in the valleys, along the
small streams. up the mountains. The
convenient supply is very limited, and
will soon be exhausted. The trees pro-
duce from /, 900 to 10, 600 feet Of lumber
each. They average from forty to eighty
feet in height and from two 10 eight feet
in diameter.
New Orleans consumes all the plan
tains shipped from Honduras. This won
derful fruit contains all the nutritive ele-
ments of wheat, and quite an amount of
saccharine matter. 1t makes delicious
article of food, whether fried, boiled or
roasted. It resembles the banana in
color and appearance, but is oue-third
larger in 81 e. The plantain, with dried
beef, forms almost exclusively the diet
of the Honduraneans. particularly the
Indians. Some oranges are raised, su-
perior to all Others
For bananas, the land is first cleared
by cutting down the brush and large
trees, and burning the land over. After
clearing, the suckers are planted IN
squares, twenty feet apart En-, sucker
produces n bunch of fruit inside Of ten
mouths The suckers are cut down and
the fruit gathered. Meanwhile new shoots
spring from the original plant, five or six
OF which are left in each hill, so that in
about two years continuous crop is
gathered Of 800 or 400 punches to the
acre The bananas are cut when about
two-thirds ripe. After reaching our mar
ket the fruit is ripened in darkenel
rooms 1t has richer flavor when
ripened in this way Owing to the sac
charine matter retained in the took or
limb on which the banana grows, the
fruit absorbs the Juice at its leisure.
Banana farms vary in size from one to
two hundred acres.
COcoanut trees are planted along the
coast Just back of the wash Of the waves.
They will not produce more than one
fourth of a mile from the coast. Two
nuts are planted together with the eyes
down. As they grow they spread out and
adapt themselves to the space of about
twenty five apart. The trees produce in
FIVE years. Orchards cover a large space,
being often twenty miles by one-fOurth
wide. Trees will produce for sixty
years, and drop from $50 to 500 nuts each
per year; so that each tree lives to dron
from , 900 to 1000. A tree usually
drops one nut per day. The nuts ripen
but the yield is best during
the four summer months The part
played by the monkey in picking cocoa
lnts is myth. The natives do the work, /
musk the nuts and ship them The husk
1r fibre is an important article Of COM
nerce. 1t is made into mating, and for
hat purpose alone large quantities OF
nuts are shipped to England. The fibre
las been wasted in this country up to
his time. but a concern has taken hold
IF new invention to utilize it. This in
Tention is intended also to strip and sep
rate the tibres Of the banana and pita.
Oranges, lines and lemons produce in
our years; the cocoa tree, from which
Ill OF our chocolate is made. in the same
lime. There are also numbers of deli
'ious fruits not shipped because they are
90 delicate The pineapple here grows
o large size.-Frdak LeSii.s.